The French president's gesture to a migrant-hero has triggered the open-borders crowd. Turns out his politics are more complicated than they thought.

The videotaped rescue last month of a young child dangling from a balcony in Paris is a story both dramatic and heart-warming. And, yes, there’s the added twist that the rescuer, Mamoudou Gassama, dubbed “Spiderman,” is a refugee from Mali who came to France sans-papiers—or, to put it more strictly, illegally.

Yet Gassama is all legal now, because French President Emmanuel Macron invited him to the Élysée palace, where he was honored for “exceptional service to France” and offered French citizenship—which Gassama accepted.

So the entire story might seem to be a happy one, in which the hero receives a just and substantial reward. (The annual per capita income in Mali is about $2000; in France, it’s about $42,000.)

Yet Macron’s civic gesture has received lots of criticism from the left—and that reveals much about the mentality of contemporary leftists.

In a June 1 Washington Postop-ed, Rokhaya Diallo, bylined as “a writer, journalist, filmmaker, and TV host for BET France,” lamented that, Gassama aside, Macron’s government has actually tightened its immigration policy. As Diallo put it, “While the nation elevates an undocumented hero, it is also pursuing harsh measures against immigration and seeking to punish those who try to provide support to migrant people. Migrants shouldn’t need to be superheroes to be acceptable in France.”

Thus we see the problem as the left sees it: Macron has introduced a dreaded concept, merit, into the consideration of citizenship for immigrants. And these days, many on the left see “merit” as just a codeword for discrimination and racism.

Echoing the Post piece, Canada’s Globe and Mail demanded to know, “Aren’t all migrants exceptional, Mr. Macron?” We can observe that while Garrison Keillor is now a non-person in the U.S., his joke about Lake Wobegon still abides internationally: everyone is above average.

Meanwhile, in Britain, The Independent snapped, “What Macron said to the Malian ‘Spider-Man’ hero in Paris about citizenship was incredibly misguided.”

Once upon a time—that is, all of a year ago—Macron was seen in a much different light. Back then, he was a new face, not yet 40 years old, whom many hoped would prove to be a progressive with dash and flair. Of course, Macron’s standing was greatly raised because his opponent in the French elections was the arch-nationalist Marine Le Pen, whom the left execrated as a “fascist.” Thus Macron’s candidacy took on the holiness of an anti-fascist crusade; lefties were thrilled when he clobbered LePen in a two-to-one landslide.

Yet the real Macron was never a progressive; his campaign was notable more for his precocious style than for the prog substance of his platform. Indeed, since taking office, Macron has actually cracked down on migration—or, as some would quaintly insist on calling it, illegal immigration. On May 30, for example, two days after Gassama’s heroism, French police raided an unauthorized migrant camp in Paris; it was their 35th such raid in three years.

It should be noted that the migrants weren’t simply rousted; they were moved to a shelter. After all, Macron is no libertarian, of either the left-wing or right-wing variety. In his view, the homeless cannot be allowed to set up wherever they please, yet they also can’t be left unsheltered. As such, Macron is echoing the stern paternalism of France’s historic tradition: there’s not much ACLU in him, nor much of the Cato Institute. Instead, he harkens back to such figures of the French pantheon as Richelieu (whom this author wrote about here for TAC), Colbert, and DeGaulle.

Today, Macron is co-opting at least some of Le Pen’s energy. As he said earlier this year to a gathering of journalists, “I can’t tell my middle classes who work, who pay taxes, that it’s great, we’re going to welcome everybody into the country. That’s just ridiculous. Who’s going to pay for that?”

Yet Macron, so full of Gallic wiles, deftly refuses to be pigeonholed as a rightist; he can’t afford to become widely regarded as “Trump’s poodle.” In that same session with journalists, he outlined his rationale for a right-tilting immigration stance. Without a crackdown, he said, “You’ll just fuel racism and xenophobia.” So if we translate the tautological politique, we can see Macron’s argument forming: I’m going to fight racism and xenophobia by…not letting in so many foreigners.

Yet by now, the avant-garde left is wise to Macron. Chronicling l’affaire Gassama, South Africa’s Eyewitness Newsstated the anti-Macron agenda plainly: “Citizenship once represented a set of rights to be demanded from the state as a form of emancipation, for example, in the civil rights and suffrage movements.”

In other words, in addition to open borders, new arrivals should expect immediate and plenteous rights.

Obviously, this is the polar opposite of the classical understanding of citizenship. To the ancient Greeks, and then the Romans—the latter having given us the concept of res publica, the public thing—citizenship was closely held and much prized.

After all, the citizenry had many valuable rights, and for those rights, it willingly bore heavy responsibilities, the heaviest of which was military duty. And yet because army service was so vital, republics sometimes offered non-citizens a path to citizenship—they could earn their way in by fighting. We might note that such martial meritocracy is common to this day. According to a 2009 report, some 119 service members, having fought for the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, received their citizenship posthumously.

Indeed, even in more pacific settings, we see the idea of citizen merit peeping through the naturalization process. Hence this 2018 headline: “Dozens earn U.S. citizenship” [emphasis added].

Perhaps the most vigorous American proponent of small-“r” republicanism was Theodore Roosevelt. In 1910, the by-then former U.S. president found himself, interestingly enough, in Paris, speaking to the Sorbonne. TR’s speech is best remembered for its hymn to “the man in the arena,” but in fact the formal title was “Citizenship in a Republic.” In that talk, TR dealt with the betterment of both the American and French republics, focusing on their populations:

For you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high.

TR added that the citizenry of any nation had to be able to pull together for its own sake: “It is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.” And so, he continued, a sturdy republic needs “good citizens…regulated by a moral sense” who will “work hard” and, if need be, “fight hard.”

The most casual reading of history—in the century since, or in any century before—vindicates TR’s judgment. That is, every nation finds itself in a struggle to survive and thrive, so it helps to have a population of competent team players. Moreover, all too often, a nation finds itself confronting a mortal threat to its very existence. So, yes, the quality of the citizenry, both native-stock and immigrant, matters greatly.

We might wonder: is the left of today, disdaining Macron (and, of course, despising TR), ignorant of this history? Or is it knowingly contemptuous of the past, perhaps because it hopes that in some radiant future, all nations will cease to exist?

Whatever the answer, the en vogue open-borders policies fit right into a profoundly anti-nationalist, even anti-patriotic, mindset. No country truly mindful of its future well-being would, for example, help determine its future citizens by lottery—and, yes, that’s been the law in the U.S. since 1990.

But back to Macron’s France. That country has hardly solved its immigration woes; it is, after all, a part of the European Union, the porous borders of which have led to political convulsions of late. Indeed, the long-term danger of demographic inundation is as dire as ever. (This author wrote about immigration into Europe for TAC back in 2005.)

For now, Macron, mindful of France’s precarious position, must play a careful geopolitical game. Just as he has maintained an equipoise between left and right in his own country, he must maintain, too, a balance, between Donald Trump on the other side of the Atlantic and Angela Merkel on the other side of the Rhine.

Yet it’s worth recalling that France has been an identifiable nation since the days of Clovis I in the sixth century, a 1,500-year track record that suggests that the French know a thing or two about survival. Indeed, the lyrics of La Marseillaise proclaim French nationalism in the starkest terms: “To arms, citizens!/ Form your battalions/ March, march/ Let impure blood/ Water our furrows.”

Yes, we can pause over the word “citizens.” After all, a country can’t survive without good citizens. It would appear that Macron just added a good one in Gassama, and yet, at the same time, he is being choosy. As he must.

James P. Pinkerton is an author and contributing editor at TAC. He served as a White House policy aide to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

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26 Responses to Macron Defines Good Citizenship by Defying the PC Left

“We might wonder: is the left of today, disdaining Macron (and, of course, despising TR), ignorant of this history? Or is it knowingly contemptuous of the past, perhaps because it hopes that in some radiant future, all nations will cease to exist?”

The core of President Macron’s immigration plan is to speed up the asylum review process to weed out economic migrants from bona fide refugees. In other words, generous towards genuine refugees, hard-nosed towards those not in actual physical danger home, which includes, yes, people like Mr. Gassama. He has also insisted on reforming the conditions under which Eastern European contract laborers are brought in.

One important factor to keep in mind is the French retirement scheme, like Social Security, is a pay-as-you-go program, and as the population ages, controlled immigration will be required to keep it afloat.

“Yet it’s worth recalling that France has been an identifiable nation since the days of Clovis I in the sixth century, a 1,500-year track record that suggests that the French know a thing or two about survival.”

The idea that the French, or anyone else for that matter, have been a nation for 1500 years, is, at the very least, highly debatable. Nationalist mythology would certainly have us believe that our nations are very old, but scholars of nationalism have many interesting things to say about this. Certainly almost all of them would agree that, if something like a French national identity existed way back then, it was only shared by a smalk minorty of people. Indeed, the widespresd sense of “Frenchness” only realky became a thing in the 19th century or so.

No mention of either Libya or Syria, the two 800-pound guerrillas in the room. If France had not assisted in the destruction of both states, Europe would not be facing a migrant crisis, and France wouldn’t have suffered over 20 Islamist terrorist attacks since 2011, as compared to the single one between it’s refusal to back Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the US/NATO campaign against Libya in 2011.

Blowback is a you-know-what, and it doesn’t always take the form of a terrorist. Sometimes, it shows up as a desperate, drowning refugee or as a migrant desperate for work and/or a better life.

Ivan, that’s not just simple, it’s simplistic. It’s a simplistic analysis that has more to do with buying your side’s own press than with having an impartial and accurate view of the political spectrum. Other than the fact leftist and left-leaning are two different things (centre left and far left are not the same), on issues such as drug legalization, abortion, open borders, and prison sentences, the left tends to be more in favor of “liberty” (ie: less state intervention) than conservatives.
Of course, you can say that abortion, open borders, drugs, etc are all bad things, but then you have to admit that liberty is not always necessarily a good thing.
Anyway, left-libertarian is someone who’s fiscally conservative but liberal on social issues.

Another example of “there goes the crowd, I must follow, I am it’s leader”. The US hegemonists have to “win”. Thus, whoever wins has to be defined as a supporter of theirs. The far right have been thrown into the dustbin of history. Le Pen is moving towards the centre, so the real threat now is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who symbolises in France the current leftward swing of the European electorate. As Marx (Groucho, that is) famously said: “those are my principles and if you don’t like them, I’ve got others”!

Actually, left-wing libertarian is redundant. Rightists ascribe to order, tradition and authority over liberty and hence stand in diametric opposition to libertarianism. That is to say, rightists and libertarians are political enemies.

I would also mention that if the so-called welfare state(i.e, the paternalistic state) confers an authority to the state to regulate(i.e, control) the liberty of movement, it likewise confers a similar authority to the state to regulate any behavior, liberty, exchange or association. And rest assured, it will exercise that authority.

Fazal Majid wrote “One important factor to keep in mind is the French retirement scheme, like Social Security, is a pay-as-you-go program, and as the population ages, controlled immigration will be required to keep it afloat.”

This is the conventional wisdom. It may not be true. We are in a time of increasing productivity due to increasing automation and increasingly capable artificial intelligence. Increased immigration will be of no benefit to an aging population if there are not enough jobs to goo around, but increased productivity could lower costs enough to make increased immigration unnecessary. Will this happen? There is no way to know. Democracies tend to be too short sighted to deal with such radical changes until after it has already happened so they will probably continue to import new people with the idea that they will be new tax payers and revenue producers until long after it is clear that this is not working.

I would date a sense of French nationalism to Joan D’Arc who gave the peoples of various provinces something to unite for (a god Chosen King) and against (The English). Even today, though, not all of France is French.

I am a frequent reader of AmCon, midwestern born and raised, but have spent years married to a French citizen living between thé US and France. Some of the assumptions that the writer makes are making here are simply untrue. It’s important to understand that there is a completely immigration different system (and cultural values) driving the réactions we see in France.

First of all the French immigration system, while lacking walls, is extremely tight. The path to citizenship, administratively speaking, is rigorous. You must pass citizenship tests, background checks, show that you have been working/ living for years in France and prove that you speak an advanced level of French. Clearing the process can take 2 years once it’s started. Even Babies born in France are not automatically citizens.

So imagine how those citizens who have been diligently working towards this feel when they see à man literally jumped the line? Don’t assume that they are protesting simply because they are pro- open borders.

When it comes to spouses of citizens, they must renew their visas every year (for a point of reference, spouses of Americans can get green cards for 10 years). Everything from taxes to banking to employment to housing requires multiple levels of validations and checks annually. The only thing that is easier in France than the US is that they have access to good cheap healthcare, access to decent education and the state will not let them die in the street.

But make no mistake about it, there no talk of « open borders » on the right or the left, simply just talk about making the process easier. People on both sides are very keen to preserve jobs, public housing and resources for those who are already here.

I know it’s tempting to blame this on the left, but as the writer noted, Macron doesn’t fit into typical French definitions of right and left, and this makes things even more confusing for Americans, because our definitions of right and left are like nowhere else in the world.

Ha ha,
yeah, oh yeah, I laugh at so many things.
Take a gander at a lil history wontcha…
the British and French allowed many people from their colonies in the 50’s and on to come over to their nations.
Then, the British and French illegally, and immorally, by international law, invaded and slaughtered people in some peoples’ own homes and towns, in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria and more and now, many of those people are…refugees! What the hell is Nato doing in Asia and the Middle East. ( I have a degree in 20th Century Europe and have read dozens more books on that subject since)
How bout that ‘superior civilized’ Americans and Euro people, eh?
And, as to this article, did I read right in some European news sources that this fellow that met with Macron is also a Moslem?
How ’bout that, ‘open minded’ people.
By the way, to you narrow minded know it’s all,
I am instantly judged, here at TAC, when I post a comment, and so, every other comment is not posted. As in other sites on the net.
Yeah…hmm…Fayez Abedaziz…
Now, what kinda name is that…must be an Aaraab…and a Moslem even.
And, I know how some people felt, years ago in America and Europe when they were suspected, by their name as…hmm that name sounds Jewish.
So, hey, my ‘cousins’ the Jews and I have a cultural something in common,
can you all dig what I’m saying?
Hope so, Salaam and Shalom

MM says: “YKW: ‘A lot of those immigrants come from former French colonies.’

“None of which have existed for over 50 years.”

And yet France maintains political, economic, cultural and security ties with many of them, and its military has intervened in some of them several times over the last six decades, including Syria and Mali in the last six years. And I wonder how many of those recent African immigrants, who Gaddafi boasted Libya was holding back from migrating to Europe, come from some of those same former French colonies?

Do you ascribe any blame for domestic discontent in Mali, and Syria, and Algeria most especially, which you completely dodged, to the governments of those countries?

Mali was the picture perfect example of “good government” (by liberal-democratic standards of the elites in North America and Western Europe) right up until it collapsed in the aftermath of the Libyan civil war. Read the reports from Freedom House or any such neoliberal house organ.

It turns out ‘good government’ doesn’t do much to ensure social stability when your country is 1) dirt poor and 2) next to a country with a civil war, lots of guns and Islamist insurgency going on (which was largely fomented by the US and France).

Large amounts of financial foreign aid to Mali- including both economic development and family planning- would do a lot more to deter migration than any amount of chatter about good government and democracy. (And to be clear deterring migration from Africa to Europe is a goal I generally very strongly support. I just recognize it can’t and won’t be done without serious financial and moral commitments to modernize Africa both economically and socially).

MM says: “That’s the point I originally made: If you’re going to complain, you better damn well explain. It’s now incumbent upon you to be an apologist for those governments and their domestic policies.”

No, the original point you made was a snarky and dismissive single sentence, “None of which have existed for over 50 years.” followed by your standard personal insult, “What is it about disgruntled old people complaining all the time?”

And now you want an explanation from me where you have provided none yourself. Well, I’m being called to dinner right now, but I will say that when it comes to the current refugee crisis, as much as I have no love for either Gaddafi or Assad, or Hussein before them, the blame falls squarely on the United States and its NATO allies for tearing those three states apart, for driving the former governments of two of them out of power and leaving those nations a mess, and fomenting a civil war in the third, all the while backing the very Islamist reactionaries and terrorists who are supposed to be our greatest enemies.

I am not aware that Algeria is contributing much to the current European refugee crisis; my impression was that it was primarily a Central and Sub-Saharan African population in the West and a Syrian and Iraqi population in the East. Do you have any numbers for Algerian refugees in the current period?

I would advice arguing with MM. My experience is that he does NOT stick to the rules of argument. We were in the mid of a discussion and he posted a rebuke, which I missed (as I have a life outside the computer, and cannot be chained to it) So he took my lack of response do brag that I had no argument, and did a victory dance on the spot.

That’s when I decided he was not worth the time.

I like to quote Rex Stout on this. Such a person is merely a dog baring its teeth, and forfeits the privileges of civilized discourse.